The Effectiveness of a Proposed Unit Based on Cognitive & Metacognitive Strategies Training in Developing Some Reading Comprehension Skills among Egyptian EFL First Year University Level Students

The aim of this study was to help EFL first year Faculty of Pharmacy students at October Modern Sciences & Arts University develop the necessary inferential and critical reading comprehension skills through a proposed unit based on cognitive and metacognitive strategies training. The study followed the quasi-experimental pretest- posttest control group/ experimental group design where two intact groups were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups. While the control group students received regular instruction, the experimental group was taught by the researcher throughout the Fall Semester of the academic year 2017- 2018 according to the proposed unit. The study tools included a checklist for determining the necessary inferential and critical reading comprehension skills, a pre- /post- reading comprehension test and the proposed unit. Results indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the post- test overall reading comprehension scores as well as in each inferential and critical comprehension sub-skill. Comparing the pre-/ post- test reading comprehension performance of the experimental group indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the pre- test and post- test scores in favour of the post- test scores. Therefore, it was concluded that the proposed unit proved to be effective in developing the experimental group students' overall reading comprehension scores as well as in developing each inferential and critical comprehension sub-skill